i've got a new low,

[lolverine]

WHO: Logan and his horrible child.
WHERE: The Bronx, near the Xavier Institute.
WHEN: Late Wednesday night, after this.
WARNINGS: Stabfest 2011
SUMMARY: Sometimes you just have to stupidly stalk someone whose GUTS YOU WANT TO REARRANGE
FORMAT: godmoding; in this thread everyone is a godmoder and no one can win

Comments

[damnrunt]

Logan had left the Institute three hours past dark, heading south. It had taken him fifteen minutes to reach the place he was looking for: a hole-in-the-wall that favored an older, more taciturn clientele, with a bartender who didn't ask questions about who you were or why you were drinking.

Everyone who had shown up that night had been a regular, and if they'd spoken, it was only to greet the rare friend who came in to join them. No one had been interested in the ugly little stranger sitting in the corner, and that was the way he liked it: just him, the beer, and no drama.

It was a good place, a pleasant end to a messy twenty-four hours. Logan left just before close, mostly healed but still smelling like shit. The route back wasn't the safest, but anyone who might have entertained an idea of trouble seemed to know to stay away that night, and gave him a wide berth. He took his time, and it was about twenty minutes, walking, before he got within a block of the Institute.

A moment after that, he caught sight of the kid down the street. At first, it didn't register: wayward students weren't really a rarity--but two steps later it hit him, tension settling deep between his shoulders and in the muscles at the backs of his hands. He kept on walking, quiet, giving no sign of recognition.

When he spoke, it was just loud enough to make the distance.

"Heard you were here."

[lolverine]

"I know you did," Daken replied, stopping on the sidewalk. A split-second glance was all he'd needed to identify Logan: that ridiculous stature, the way he walked, everything about him was distinctive.

"Who told you? Selina? Laura?" It didn't matter; he had expected it. He started toward Logan, slowly, hands in his pockets.

[damnrunt]

Logan's face darkened at the mention of Laura; it may or may not have been too dim to see it. He stopped walking: partially to make Daken come to him, mostly to keep it as far away from the Institute as possible.

Figured that the day wouldn't end easy. "What do you want, boy?"

[lolverine]

"I want what anyone wants. A fair deal. A chance to be forgiven. To move past the mistakes instead of being defined by them." He was still walking slowly, speaking as sincerely as he could fake, knowing it wouldn't make a difference to his father.

"I'm sure you can relate. Your whole life has been mistakes, hasn't it?" There were gaps in Logan's life that he knew nothing about, but he knew enough to guess. "Things you just couldn't find the strength to avoid." A heartbeat's pause. "Or deal with. But that's okay. That's why we're here: second chances."

Close enough.

He pulled his hands from his pockets and forced his claws out. "Aren't you gonna give me a hug?"

[damnrunt]

He had to give it to the kid: he hadn't lost any of his talent for hurt. It didn't matter that Logan knew the will behind it; with every word Daken said, all he could see was every failure he'd ever experienced with his son, every incident in which he'd tried to break through to him only to lose out to the history between them.

The tension was still there, doubled, traveling in sparks of anticipation from knuckles to spine. Logan popped his claws--but his hands were down, prepared to defend, not attack. Not yet.

"Wasn't expecting to see you after that big show of saying goodbye."

[lolverine]

"Oh, believe me," he said, advancing, "I wasn't expecting to see you either, but here you are--"

He cut off that thought with a lunge and a swing at Logan's face; nothing serious, just a little fuck-you for showing up and ruining things.

[damnrunt]

Logan moved, catching the swing on his injured arm and missing having his left eye torn out by a fraction of a second. The cuts were deep, but the pain barely registered.

"We don't have to do this, Daken." It was useless by now, he knew, but the words were as much a salve for his own still-stinging conscience as they were for his son.

[lolverine]

It only made him angrier. Of course Logan was taking the moral high road, even though there was no one around to see how heroic he was being. Of course.

He threw his claws at Logan's ribs instead of bothering to answer.

[damnrunt]

Another hit, blocked just enough to avoid any severe damage--to his ribs. His arm was taking a major beating tonight, and there were more than a few jagged glints of adamantium under the lacerations.

It was becoming difficult to resist fighting back.

[lolverine]

"Maybe you're right. We don't have to do this." Daken drew back a step, then two. He had proverbial knife to twist, but it was reasonably likely to end in him bleeding all over the sidewalk until dawn (and he didn't have any real interest in that)--but only if he didn't have enough room. No matter how angry he got, Logan was slower than he was.

"How'd it go, by the way?" He grinned. "With the Red Right Hand."

[damnrunt]

For a moment, it was as if Logan didn't hear him: he just stood there, almost humorously frozen in place.

His mind caught up with him within a second. The words echoed through him like shouts in an amphitheater, rolling over and over each other as if somehow repetition would make sense of a thing that had to be impossible. Logan saw Daken and the street around him abruptly flatten out, spinning rapidly away out of sight before snapping back a quarter of a second later.

He half-staggered out of the crouch he'd been waiting in, hands falling towards his sides along with any pretense he might have made at defense.

"What?" Stupidly.

[lolverine]

It was even better than twisting a real knife.

"How did it go?" he repeated, slowly and patiently, as if speaking to a child. "Don't tell me nothing happened. They worked so hard."

[damnrunt]

He took a step, and then another, toward him, as if he had to be closer to hear what Daken was saying.

"What are you talking about, Daken?" It was rasping, full of disbelief cut through with a very slowly dawning, horrible realization.

[lolverine]

"Oh, of course--" Daken tapped his forehead theatrically, "I forgot about the timeline. This superhero shit really messes with me." He stepped back for every step forward Logan took, keeping the distance between them. "Maybe you haven't gotten there. I hope I haven't ruined any surprises."

[damnrunt]

"No." Flatly, carrying the last traces of shakiness as the adrenaline from the fight began to spark again--but Logan still didn't want to believe. "You're not sayin' you had a part in that." It was almost an order, said as if he could command Daken into undoing the reality of what he had done.

Of what Logan had done. He had picked up speed, starting to advance on Daken, although it hadn't yet fully hit him. Logan was still in denial. The increase in speed was more due to his sudden urge to grab his son and slap the stupidity out of him than to seriously attack.

[lolverine]

Daken was walking faster, matching the pace Logan set, and he was smiling so hard it hurt. He had played the most magnificent chess game on the planet, flawlessly, and now he got to explain it to the man who'd lost. Lost and won, really; he'd captured and slaughtered his own king. That was the perfection of it.

"What do you mean, 'no'? I gave them the names!"